BACKGROUND: Although bipolar disorder (BD) and borderline personality disorder (BPD) share clinical characteristics and frequently co-occur, their interrelationship is controversial. Especially, the differentiation of rapid cycling BD and BPD can be troublesome. This study investigates the relationship between borderline personality features (BPF) and prospective illness course in patients with BD, and explores the effects of current mood state on self-reported BPF profiles. METHODS: The study included 375 patients who participated in the former Stanley Foundation Bipolar Network...

This study demonstrated four distinct patterns in the course of back pain after osteoporotic vertebral fracture (OVF). Greater angular instability in the first 6 months after the baseline was one factor affecting back pain after OVF. PURPOSE: Understanding the natural course of symptomatic acute OVF is important in deciding the optimal treatment strategy. We used latent class analysis to classify the course of back pain after OVF and identify the risk factors associated with persistent pain...

Deficits in joint position sense (JPS) and force sense (FS) are two functional insufficiencies contributing to chronic ankle instability (CAI). To date, JPS and FS have been only investigated in the sagittal and transverse movement planes but not in the functional movement plane of the pronators and supinators defined by the axis of the subtalar joint (STJ). The purpose of this study was to investigate subtalar JPS as well as pronator and supinator FS in supinated and pronated joint angle in subjects with CAI...

The interplay between subclinical psychotic, negative, and affective symptoms has gained increased attention regarding the etiology of psychosis spectrum and other mental disorders. Importantly, research has tended to not differentiate between different subtypes of psychotic-like experiences (PLE) although they may not have the same significance for mental health. In order to gain information on the subclinical interplay between specific PLE and other symptoms as well as the significance of PLE for mental health, we investigated their specific associations in 206 healthy individuals (20-60 years, 73 females) using correlational and linear regression analyses...

In this study, we present a novel cross-linked unimolecular micelle based on chitosan. For controlling drug delivery via oral administration, emodin (EMO) encapsulated micelles were loaded into sodium alginate hydrogel matrix to construct the pH-sensitive hydrogel/micelle composites. The optimized formulation of micelle that consists of 8.06% CaCl2, 1.71% chitosan and 26.52% β-GP was obtained by the combination of Box-Behnken experimental design and response surface methodology. The morphological analysis showed that the micelles exhibited a smaller diameter of about 80nm in aqueous solution, but dilated to 100-200nm in hydrogel owing to the formation of polyelectrolyte complexes...

Sepsis is a life-threatening medical condition, affecting approximately 26 million people worldwide every year. The disease is a continuum, marked by dysregulated inflammation and hemodynamic instability leading to shock, multi-system organ dysfunction, and death. Over the past decades, there has been a focus on the early identification and treatment of sepsis primarily with bundled and goal directed therapy. Despite these advances, morbidity and mortality has remained high, prompting investigation into novel therapies...

Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) is the most common malignancy in adults with a 5-year survival rate of 27% of the total affected population. For effective treatment and new drug discovery, cell lines are considered as a very important tool. Here we report an establishment of a continuous human cell line AML-004 with a hypo-diploid chromosome 44 and presence of both NK/NKT phenotypes. The cell line was isolated from the blood sample of myeloid NK cell acute leukemia patients and extensively characterized by flow cytometery, morphology, and cytogentic analysis...

Lysosomal storage diseases (LSDs) describe a heterogeneous group of rare inherited metabolic disorders that result from the absence or loss of function of lysosomal hydrolases or transporters, resulting in the progressive accumulation of undigested material in lysosomes. The accumulation of substances affects the function of lysosomes and other organelles, resulting in secondary alterations such as impairment of autophagy, mitochondrial dysfunction, inflammation and apoptosis. LSDs frequently involve the central nervous system (CNS), where neuronal dysfunction or loss results in progressive neurodegeneration and premature death...

BACKGROUND: In response to the opioid epidemic and new guidelines, many patients on high-dose long term opioid therapy (LTOT) for chronic pain are getting tapered off opioids. As a result, a unique clinical challenge is emerging: while many on LTOT have poor pain control, functional decline, psychiatric instability, aberrancies and misuse, these issues may often worsen with opioid tapering. Currently, a clear explanation and practical guidance on how to manage this perplexing clinical scenario is lacking...

The comprehension of the governing mechanism which affects device instability is one of the most important requirements for the formation of reliable oxide-thin film transistors (TFTs). However, a quantitative analysis of the dominant mechanism of device instability, which stems from charge trapping induced by defects at the oxide semiconductor interface as well as in its bulk, has not yet been systematically performed. In this study, we examined subgap states, charge-transport dynamics, and various trap characteristics of oxide TFTs by multi-frequency C-V, pulse I-V, and transient current methods to achieve a comprehensive understanding of carrier transport and charge trapping mechanisms...

Transient and stable vector transfections have played important roles in illustrating the function of specific genes/proteins. The general assumption is that such a platform could effectively link a given gene/protein to gained phenotypes, revealing the mechanism of how a gene works. However, in reality, increased studies have surprisingly noticed some unexpected results. In this review, we demonstrate that an assumption that empty vector-transfected cells preserve the cytogenetic and phenotypic characteristics, and represent the adequate control in transfection experiments is not universally valid...

The circumstances surrounding poverty-tight financial challenges, instability of income and expenses, low savings, no insurance, and several other stressors-translate into persistent and cognitively taxing hardship for people in poverty contexts. Thoughts about money and expenses loom large, shape mental associations, interfere with other experiences, and are difficult to suppress. The persistent juggling of insufficient resources affects attention, cognitive resources, and ensuing decisions. Despite the demanding struggle with challenging circumstances, people in poverty encounter disdain rather than admiration, and obstacles rather than support...

Covalent modifications of histones have an established role as chromatin effectors, as they control processes such as DNA replication and transcription, and repair or regulate nucleosomal structure. Loss of modifications on histone N tails, whether due to mutations in genes belonging to histone-modifying complexes or mutations directly affecting the histone tails, causes developmental disorders or has a role in tumorigenesis. More recently, modifications affecting the globular histone core have been uncovered as being crucial for DNA repair, pluripotency and oncogenesis...

BACKGROUND: Shoulder dislocation is often the first symptom of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS). Whether it occurs in early-onset EDS is unknown. In most cases, surgical failure leads to the diagnosis. We aimed to determine whether clinical symptoms can signal the presence of EDS at a first dislocation. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this retrospective study, we analyzed clinical and radiologic data for 27 patients with EDS and shoulder instability and a control population of 40 consecutive non-EDS patients undergoing surgery for an unstable shoulder...

Through contaminated diet, water, and other forms of environmental exposure, arsenic affects human health. There are many U.S. and worldwide "hot spots" where the arsenic level in public water exceeds the maximum exposure limit. The biological effects of chronic arsenic exposure include generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), leading to oxidative stress and DNA damage, epigenetic DNA modification, induction of genomic instability, and inflammation and immunomodulation, all of which can initiate carcinogenesis...

DNA base damage is an important contributor to genome instability, but how the formation and repair of these lesions is affected by the genomic landscape and contributes to mutagenesis is unknown. Here, we describe genome-wide maps of DNA base damage, repair, and mutagenesis at single nucleotide resolution in yeast treated with the alkylating agent methyl methanesulfonate (MMS). Analysis of these maps revealed that base excision repair (BER) of alkylation damage is significantly modulated by chromatin, with faster repair in nucleosome-depleted regions, and slower repair and higher mutation density within strongly positioned nucleosomes...

Vivid emotional mental imagery has been identified across a range of mental disorders. In bipolar spectrum disorders - psychopathologies characterized by mood swings that alternate between depression and mania, and include irritability and mixed affect states - mental imagery has been proposed to drive instability in both 'positive' and 'negative' mood. That is, mental imagery can act as an "emotional amplifier". The current experimental study tested this hypothesis and investigated imagery characteristics associated with mood amplification using a spectrum approach to psychopathology...

The study aimed to test the hypotheses that chronic social instability stress (CSIS) alters behavioral and physiological parameters and expression of selected genes important for stress response and social behaviors. Adult female Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to the 4-week CSIS procedure, which involves unpredictable rotation between phases of isolation and overcrowding. Behavioral analyses (Experiment 1) were performed on the same rats before and after CSIS (n = 16) and physiological and biochemical measurements (Experiment 2) were made on further control (CON; n = 7) and stressed groups (CSIS; n = 8)...

In this paper we discuss the semiotic functions of the psychological borders that structure the flow of narrative processes. Each narration is always a contextual, situated and contingent process of sensemaking, made possible by the creation of borders, such as dynamic semiotic devices that are capable of connecting the past and the future, the inside and the outside, and the me with the non-me. Borders enable us to narratively construct one's own experiences using three inherent processes: contextualization, intersubjective positioning and setting of pertinence...